When I started my research in churchyards and burial grounds in Barbados, I was told I would only ever be able to write ‘white histories’ of these places. Nevertheless, it wasn’t long before the illusive history that I sought began to emerge. The following five monuments tell a story that does indeed start with slavery, tragedy and inequality, but it is also a story of resistance, struggle and resiliency.

As an archaeologist and historian, I get asked one question more than any others: Why did I choose Barbados? Why did I choose to record funerary monuments in Bajan churches and churchyards? Since launching this site, the question has transformed to: why did MAP choose to launch with pilot data from Barbados?

The simple answer is: it was there. I had the data in front of me, and it was reasonably complete, and I had the permissions that I needed to make it freely accessible.

The Monumental Archive Project was established to act as an open platform for historic cemeteries research to address issues of accessibility and sustainability, whilst also stimulating creativity and collaboration.